“Twelve years ago I was the change agent,” says Whitman. Yes, he was, and that fact is largely forgotten. So is the fact that the city’s excessive force settlements have not been on the rise, as some critics seem to think.

Yet is Whitman really suggesting that the coverage of, say, the 2009 beating of Michael DeHerrera in Lower Downtown by police was unwarranted? Or that critics should simply ignore the astonishing insistence of the police union and others that lying by officers on official reports amounts to a trivial offense?

And speaking of the DeHerrera case, let’s not forget, as a Denver Post editorial noted on March 16, “It took almost two years for him to say it publicly, but Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman finally echoed what many in Colorado have long believed: The officer who beat an unarmed and non-threatening Michael DeHerrera needs to go.”

So it took the chief nearly two years before decisively weighing in! Is it really any wonder that the department has gotten a black eye?

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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